[HANASHIR:6422] Re: Burton's Request

[Adrian Durlester <durleste...>]

Burton (& HN subscribers):

Your own request also serves to highlight an additional important point. The
work of a composer, or their agent, or professional transcriber, or other
person engaged to transcribe a composer's music in sheet music form surely
has a need for parnassa. While most, if not all, composers want their music
used, and widely circulated, one can't really expect every composer to
simply hand out, gratis and willy-nilly, an actual sheet music form of their
work. Even a simple lyric/guitar chord lead sheet requires some effort,
though most composers can scribble those off pretty quickly. Only a handful
of songwriters I know actually transcribe their own songs.

And Burton, we should be careful of the terminology. Technically, a lead
sheet *would* have one staff of music with the melody line transcribed and
then accompanying chords (for guitar, piano, et al) listed. "Lead sheets"
are what you generally find in most published songbooks by contemporary
Jewish songwriters. What you find in the NFTY Chordster, on the other hand,
with only lyrics and guitar chords would not be considered an actual "lead
sheet" though it is often referred to as such, as we Americans get typically
lazy with our language and word definitions.

If you are asking for more than a transcribed melody line with accompanying
chord symbols, then, my dear friend, I think you ask too much. Then we are
getting into the realm of multiple staff arrangements and piano
transcriptions and scores. That is the only other way to represent the chord
structure as you seem to be requesting. Guitar player or not, most
musicians, singers, etc., that I know are fully capable of translating a
chord symbol into proper accompaniment as long as they have the
melody-either in their head, or on a transcribed lead sheet.

Few of us can scribble off full or even partially score music as fast as
actor Thomas Hulce did portraying Mozart in "Amadeus."

Sure, some of can choose, as I have, to become proficient at transcription
using the latest and best technology, like Finale.(And hopefully, find some
parnassa for our efforts.) And now there are inexpensive shareware programs,
like Noteworthy Composer, that empower songwriters to create their own
transcriptions quickly and easily. But these efforts still take time, and
ultimately it becomes a choice of where we focus our efforts. Professional
transcribers exist because composers would like to focus their efforts
elsewhere.

If your organization wants to do some serious fundraising and start a
campaign to hire people to begin transcribing the music that isn't available
to your archives in the desired format, then maybe that problem can be
solved. I'm not sure it's fair to ask the songwriters themselves to provide
the service. In fact, that's the kind of support today's Jewish songwriters
need - a foundation to help them finance and produce albums, help them get
their music transcribed for posterity, etc. "Birthright Israel" isn't
enough; it's time for "Birthright Jewish Music."

Adrian

------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."
                          -George Carlin
Adrian A. Durlester. M.T.S.  -  durleste (at) home(dot)com
http://members.home.net/durleste/
Music Director, Congregation Micah, Nashville, TN http://www.micahnash.org/
Home phone (615) 646-9788 Nextel cel-phone (615) 207-2661
You can page me from http://www.nextel.com
List-Owner for hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org; Co-Owner for L-Torah (at) 
shamash(dot)org
http://uahc.org/hanashir
Editor, Bim Bam (for Torah Aura Productions) http://www.torahaura.com/
Alternate Email: aad (at) iname(dot)com  adriand (at) aol(dot)com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org [mailto:owner-hanashir (at) 
> shamash(dot)org]On
> Behalf Of Burton A. Zipser
> Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2000 4:13 PM
> To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> Subject: [HANASHIR:6421] Re: HN 2000 songs
>
>
> Dear Hanashirites:
>       The request (below) sent in by Neil Weinstein recently, highlights
> a very big problem which composers of Jewish music, especially written in
> the folk/pop idiom, need to address. Not every performer plays the guitar
> (I, for example, had a childhood accident and can only play the
> guitar com-
> fortably when seated and with the instrument held with the neck almost at
> right angles to the floor. If those who create such music could provide
> more than just chord symbols, especially when a sound version may not be
> available, it will do wonders for both musicians who can play a keyboard
> and for non-Jewish musicians who have little concept of our music, to help
> in perpetuating the traditional performance of many of these selections.
> As Director of the International Archive of Jewish Music I will not accept
> any music which has only a lead-sheet format.  There is a market
> for Jewish
> music out there.  For many musicians (Jewish and otherwise), the
> "Sing Out"
> format may be acceptable.  For many others, an alternative offering ought
> to be available.
>       (Just an observation).  Burton Zipser


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